Chris Cleave

I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#storytelling

We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#trauma #life

In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself. I know this because it started whispering to me when I was in the detention center. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#death

Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#caring-for-others #caring-loved-one #illness #parenting #sacrifice

Her life was one endless loop that she raced around, with steep banked curves so she could never change or slow down. It just delivered her back to herself, over and over and over. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#confrontationt #realization #truth #change

This is the trouble with all happiness - all of it is built on top of something that men want. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#men

... Sometimes -- in the rare moments when she wasn't causing quite serious mental discomfort -- being friends with Zoe was like being knocked dizzy by grace. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#friendship

The mourners clustered around the edge of the grave, paralyzed by the horror of this thing, this first discovery of death that was worse than the death itself. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#death-discovery #death

We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, "I survived ↗

— Chris Cleave

#beauty

One phone call: I realized it was as simple as that. People wonder how they are ever going to change their lives, but really it is frighteningly easy. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#change